Jeremiah 43:1-10

43:1 Jeremiah finished telling all the people all these things the Lord their God had sent him to tell them. ¹  43:2 Then Azariah ²  son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and other arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie! The Lord our God did not send you to tell us, ‘You must not go to Egypt and settle there.’ 43:3 But Baruch son of Neriah is stirring you up against us. ³  He wants to hand us over ⁴  to the Babylonians ⁵  so that they will kill us or carry us off into exile in Babylon.” 43:4 So Johanan son of Kareah, all the army officers, and all the rest of the people did not obey the Lord’s command to stay in the land. 43:5 Instead Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers led off all the Judean remnant who had come back to live in the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been scattered. ⁶  43:6 They also led off all the men, women, children, and royal princesses ⁷  that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had left with Gedaliah, ⁸  the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan. This included the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah. 43:7 They went on to Egypt ⁹  because they refused to obey the Lord, and came to Tahpanhes. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah Predicts that Nebuchadnezzar Will Plunder Egypt and Its Gods

43:8 At Tahpanhes the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ¹¹  43:9 “Take some large stones ¹²  and bury them in the mortar of the clay pavement ¹³  at the entrance of Pharaoh’s residence ¹⁴  here in Tahpanhes. Do it while the people of Judah present there are watching. ¹⁵  43:10 Then tell them, ¹⁶  ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁷  says, “I will bring ¹⁸  my servant ¹⁹  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will set his throne over these stones which I ²⁰  have buried. He will pitch his royal tent ²¹  over them.

[43:1]  ¹ tn This sentence contains an emphasis that is impossible to translate into idiomatic English that would not sound redundant. In Hebrew the sentence reads: “When Jeremiah finished [the temporal subordination is left out here because it would make the sentence too long] telling all the people all the words [or all the things] which the Lord their God had sent him [to say] to them, namely all these words,…” The last phrase has been left out of the translation as already having been included. Though they have been left out of the translation, attention is called to their presence here.

[43:2]  ² sn See the study note on 42:1 for the possible identification of this man with Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite.

[43:3]  ³ tn Or “is inciting you against us.”

[43:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “in order to give us into the hands of the Chaldeans.” The substitution “he wants to” as the equivalent of the purpose clause has been chosen to shorten the sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.

[43:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[43:5]  ⁶ sn These are the people who are referred to in Jer 40:11-12.

[43:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” See the translator’s note on 41:10.

[43:6]  ⁸ sn This refers to the group mentioned in Jer 40:7 and 41:10. The two groups together constituted all the people who were at Mizpah when Gedaliah was murdered, had been taken captive by Ishmael, had been rescued by Johanan and the other army officers, and had consulted Jeremiah at Geruth Chimham.

[43:7]  ⁹ sn This had been their intention all along (41:17). Though they consulted the Lord and promised to do what he told them whether they agreed with it or not (42:5-6), it is clear that they had no intention of doing so. Jeremiah could see that (42:19-22). They refused to believe that the Lord had really said what Jeremiah told them (43:4) and feared reprisal from the Babylonians more than any potential destruction from the Lord (43:3).

[43:7]  ¹⁰ sn Tahpanhes was an important fortress city on the northern border of Egypt in the northeastern Nile delta. It is generally equated with the Greek city of Daphne. It has already been mentioned in 2:16 in conjunction with Memphis (the Hebrew name is “Noph”) as a source of soldiers who did violence to the Israelites in the past.

[43:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes, saying.”

[43:9]  ¹² tn Heb “Take some large stones in your hands.”

[43:9]  ¹³ tn The meaning of the expression “mortar of the clay pavement” is uncertain. The noun translated “mortar” occurs only here and the etymology is debated. Both BDB 572 s.v. מֶלֶט and KBL 529 s.v. מֶלֶט give the meaning “mortar.” The noun translated “clay pavement” is elsewhere used of a “brick mold.” Here BDB 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “quadrangle” and KBL 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “terrace of bricks.” HALOT 558 s.v. מֶלֶט and מַלְבֵּן 2 give “loamy soil” for both words, seeing the second noun as a dittography or gloss of the first (see also note c in BHS).

[43:9]  ¹⁴ sn All the commentaries point out that this was not Pharaoh’s (main) palace but a governor’s residence or other government building that Pharaoh occupied when he was in Tahpanhes.

[43:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in Tahpanhes in the eyes of the men of Judah.”

[43:10]  ¹⁶ sn This is another of those symbolic prophecies of Jeremiah which involved an action and an explanation. Compare Jer 19, 27.

[43:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the translation and significance of this title.

[43:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “send and take/fetch.”

[43:10]  ¹⁹ sn See the study note on Jer 25:9 for the use of this epithet for foreign rulers. The term emphasizes God’s sovereignty over history.

[43:10]  ²⁰ tn The Greek version reads the verbs in this sentence as third person, “he will set,” and second person, “you have buried.” This fits the context better but it is difficult to explain how the Hebrew could have arisen from this smoother reading. The figure of substitution (metonymy of cause for effect) is probably involved: “I will have him set” and “I have had you bury.” The effect of these substitutions is to emphasize the sovereignty of God.

[43:10]  ²¹ tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. The word here (שַׁפְרִירוֹ [shafriro] Qere, שַׁפְרוּרוֹ [shafruro] Kethib) occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. According to the lexicons it refers to either the carpet for his throne or the canopy over it. See, e.g., HALOT 1510 s.v. שַׁפְרִיר.